The Oni, page 27
When it finally did, it passed near enough that Kura could have raised sparks on its metal side with his sword point. No sooner did the last car go by than air brakes squealed once more for the Seventy-Second Street stop.
We must have been spotted then, Cooper thought. She licked her lips. Kura opened his mouth to speak. She waved it shut again until the Local pulled out and its rear lights vanished around the curve of the tunnel.
“What is it now?” she finally whispered. “You don’t have to go to the bathroom again, do you?”
Kura winced, wishing she hadn’t reminded him. No, he was all right. His kidneys must be squeezed dry after all the time he spent in the men’s room of the museum.
“I only wanted to know your next step.” Kura pointed. “Up onto that platform and down the other side, all the way to Times Square?”
Cooper shook her head. “Not on an Express stop. Too many people. Anyway, we’re not finished with this section of tunnel. The demon has to be hiding between these two stops. He entered through a ventilation grate on the south side of Seventy-Ninth. If he’d gone uptown towards Eighty-Sixth Street he’d have passed through the station, and someone would have seen him. Since this western wall seems to be clear, we’ll have to check the east.”
“Unless he got bored and left.”
“According to Jiro Nakato, oni love caves. He’s here.”
“He might’ve hopped a ride to Prospect Park.”
Cooper shrugged. “Or the Bronx Zoo. If he did, there’s no way we can trace him until he shows himself.”
“Let’s wait at my place.”
“No. We go by what little we know, not what obstacles we can imagine.” She leaned out of the recess. “No trains coming. Let’s cross over. Watch out for the third rail.”
“I know that much!” Kura muttered, following as Cooper leapt to the roadbed and started briskly across. He scrambled to take the lead, and turned his head to flash a grin at the woman as he passed. His right foot rose higher than necessary, and then came down too soon. His sole scraped the wooden safety cover.
Cooper plunged forward to grasp the sword and lift it away from the humming rail. Her fingers tingled from the contact. The blade seemed to possess its own electricity.
“Kura, you ass! Don’t drag the sword like a damned pull-toy!”
Kura swallowed a thick clot that had formed in his throat. He did not reply. He was too shaken by his sudden, narrow escape.
Sticky warmth oozed onto Cooper’s left palm.
She brought it to her lips. The blood had a sharp, acrid taste. An eyebrow fluttered in mild surprise. When she’d hefted the iron sword under Allison Zebar’s cool gaze, the edge looked anything but keen, barely capable of cutting butter. Cooper would never have considered it a feasible weapon, but the legend insisted on its inherent power. She wasn’t sure what that meant; bolts of energy, she’d supposed, like something out of Star Wars. Yet now the edge was sharp enough to slice her hand at a touch. She sucked at the wound, hoping her saliva would counteract any disease-bearing bacteria that might be harbored in the tunnel sludge staining her hands.
The sword was preparing for the realization of its thousand-year-old destiny.
They’d reached the Uptown Local tracks and Kura was already creeping north.
“Kura!” she whispered. “He’s near. He must be.”
She reached for his elbow. He drew his arm away so that she could not feel his trembling.
“Why suddenly so sure?”
Cooper had no chance to explain. The wall came to life in front of the photographer. The tunnel floor shook with a vibration unlike that of any passing subway train. A shadowy mass came between them and the lights of the Seventy-Ninth Street platform.
Their search was over.
Again he’d overslept! Though not without reason. He’d battled fiercely and eaten well the night before. Much of his old confidence had returned as he grew used to surprise. He feared these villagers less with each encounter. Feared? Never!
He’d just been sizing up his opponents, as any good warrior would do.
They had thrown their best at him. Their methods were unusual, but that wasn’t good enough. He’d been more startled than harmed by, for example, those lead pellets.
He was impatient now. Tonight began his conquest in earnest. Tonight he hunted.
He had barely made his decision when harsh whispers reached his pointed ears. The infamously unpleasant grin twisted his lips. He would not have to seek far for his first prey. They were coming to him: foolish, would-be heroes, no doubt.
If they were so eager to die, of course, he saw no harm in obliging them.
Cooper reached into the left-hand pocket of her coat for the heavy black flashlight. Blood from her cut made the casing slippery. She shifted it to her right hand and flicked it on. The barrel end prevented the beam from diffusing.
Spotlighted in the sudden glare, the oni blinked but otherwise did not flinch. The creature’s grin revealed dark-stained fangs. The horns atop the hairless skull scraped the roof of the tunnel, and the temperature seemed to take a sudden drop.
“My God,” moaned Kura. “My God!”
Though Cooper, too, was shaken, her companion’s whimpering strengthened her own resolve. “Lift the blade, Kura! It’s the only thing that can kill him! Can’t you feel the power in your grip? The sword wants this conflict! Defend yourself, you idiot!”
Kura couldn’t understand her words. Panic overrode his senses. He heard only the blood rushing through his arteries, felt only an all-enveloping cold, saw only the great three-fingered hand reaching for his throat. Despite this paralysis, he was raising the blade.
When it leveled parallel to the tracks, Kura stumbled forward, less attacking than dragged into conflict.
The demon’s mouth writhed. Guttural syllables spewed forth. The ebon eyes blazed with loathing as they fell upon the iron sword.
His previous glimpse had been fleeting, a moment or two, more than a dozen centuries ago, but that had been sufficient. Its image was branded in his mind. Meiko’s workmanship was undeniable. He’d brooded on the memory of it for a millennium.
The weapon clove the thick air between its wielder and himself, singing his doom.
His doom? Pah! He feared no man.
He gave challenge.
Cooper’s free hand covered her left ear, matting her hair with blood and cutting the volume not a decibel. The monster’s roar echoed from the recessed walls, bounced off metal struts, to throb against her eardrums. When it finally faded, it was replaced by a swelling babble from somewhere behind her. Subway riders at the north end of the Seventy-Second Street station could hardly have failed to hear that outcry. Many of them jockeyed along the platform’s lip for better views.
Kura tightened his grip on the hilt with both hands. The swordtip wavered, but it did not lower.
Straining to keep silent, Cooper bit her tongue. She concentrated on holding the flashlight steady.
No verbal encouragement could counter that awesome sight and would only distract the photographer … likely with fatal results.
The demon’s hand shot forward.
Kura dodged to the right, swinging the blade. It missed the oni and clanged along the tunnel wall. The iron reverberated in anguished frustration.
The demon moved quickly. He would corner his assailant before Kura recovered from the misstep.
Kura spun to the left, letting the weapon’s weight drag him along. He realized that his best chance was to let the sword have its way. It knew better than he how to fight.
The blade’s edge sliced a thin line on the oni’s right thigh, level with Kura’s chin. Ichor welled thick and black as pitch.
The oni shrieked, backing rapidly away. Cooper had to trot to keep her circle of light focused on the red-skinned giant. It seemed to her that there was suddenly more clearance between the monster’s horns and the tunnel roof. Was the creature simply crouching as he ran … or did he plan to escape by shrinking down?
He mustn’t be allowed to escape.
“Follow through!” Cooper called to the reluctant champion.
Moving through the gloom at the edge of Cooper’s lightbeam, Kura closed in. His flannel shirt stuck to his back. He was already overheated from exertion. He licked dry lips. With one eye on his quarry, the Akuragawa heir shifted the weapon from hand to hand in order to shrug off his overcoat. The garment fell, forgotten, into the greasy filth between the tracks.
The oni moaned.
He, Andrew Kura, was winning! At least, he’d hurt the thing. That was more than New York’s Finest had done, according to the newspapers. The sword really was blessed, and the hilt tingled in his hands. A mere scratch caused the oni unutterable agony, to judge by his screams. Of course, the monster could be faking, trying to lure him in, but something told Kura that this was no act.
Something which might have been the kami of the sword.
Cooper’s advice was sound, he thought. Press your advantage.
Kura ran forward, swinging the sword in an arc above his head.
An impressive charge. Not a practical one. The demon, who had vastly more battle experience, mirrored it. The gap between them narrowed faster than Kura thought possible.
The photographer wasn’t prepared for this. He tried to slow and turn aside. The eager sword defied him. Kura skidded on roadbed gravel and stubbed his toe on a crosstie. He tumbled to land sprawling at the oni’s feet.
The creature chuckled and reached down.
Kura rolled between those massive legs. Talons raked his back. The sword clanged on a rail, the impact jarring his arm to the elbow, but he managed to hold onto it.
The oni spun to face him.
Kura struggled erect. He stood waiting, feet apart, knees bent slightly, sword angled protectively before him. As a novice, he could only guess at the best defensive posture for the situation. The demon’s counterattack was swift. Even an experienced samurai might have been slow to make the proper move.
The three-fingered hand circled both of Kura’s wrists at once. Bones ground against bones. The oni jerked him off the tunnel floor. The photographer’s left shoulder tore out of its socket with a wet pop. His cries ripped through the darkness.
The iron sword fell from nerveless fingers. It clattered dully on the ties.
A rush of air struck Cooper’s left cheek, tugging at her hair. She turned her face into it expectantly. This could be a kamikaze, a divine wind such as that which miraculously saved Japan from the Mongol invasion. They needed a miracle now!
Miracles didn’t happen that easily.
A Downtown Express hurtled along the tracks. The oni held Kura suspended between the Uptown Local and Express tracks. The motorman did not yet see the monster. Safety lights on his route were green; he expected no obstacles. The cars barreled down the straightaway, for this was the best section of track in the whole system for feeling the speed these cars were capable of, as any subway buff would attest. The oni’s body blocked the beam of Cooper’s flashlight, denying the driver even that much hint that something was not right.
Kura dangled like a puppet. Suddenly, his right shoulder also dislocated. A gurgling scream escaped his lips, and his world was a ball of red pain.
The oni grinned.
Cooper followed, ashen-faced, as the oni moved northward with his prize. What else could she do? There was a chance, however small, that the creature would get bored or distracted, allowing her to drag Kura free.
There was a much better chance of getting herself killed.
The Express whipped past the Seventy-Ninth Street station. Its rumble drowned the faint scrape of Cooper’s loafers on the awkwardly-spaced ties.
The oni stopped and twirled Kura about his horned skull. The man’s ankle smashed against a steel strut. Kura screamed in fresh agony. The oni released him.
The photographer thudded onto the Express tracks, in the center of the lead car’s headlight beams.
Brakes groaned. Passengers slid along hard plastic seats, piling up on one another. Standees grappled with straps or sprawled on laps or floors.
Cooper stared in wide-eyed horror. The train obviously would not stop in time.
Metal wheels sliced and crushed. Blood spattered stanchions on either side of the track. Skin tore like tissue paper. Bones split.
It was over very quickly.
Bile burned Cooper’s throat. I killed him, she thought. As surely as if I’d pushed him in front of that train myself. I browbeat Andrew Kura into performing heroics he was clearly unsuited for, and now …
… now the last survivor of the Akuragawa clan was dead. No one remained to halt the oni’s terror. Oh, ordinary mortals might succeed—with weapons undreamt of in the creature’s time, such as the one that had defeated Japan almost forty years earlier—but not without other kinds of horror.
Three cars rolled over the photographer’s corpse before the train halted. Cooper fought the urge to vomit. Her palms were damp, almost too damp to hold the flashlight. Her face felt fevered. Yet she would not give in to the creeping weakness. She could not!
Ignoring her, the oni strode to the lead car. Inside, riders cringed against the opposite side as his grotesque features appeared by the windows. The oni sneered. He would get to them later. He reached the front of the train and peered through the motorman’s window—the serpent’s eye.
Serpent! Contrivance, rather!
His bloodlust whetted, enraged at this trickery, the oni smashed his three-fingered fist through that window. The driver’s compartment was small. The man had no room to duck. His head was crushed flat against the back panel.
The Dead Man switch locked the brakes. The train, with its eight cars full of eager New Year’s Eve celebrants, could not now continue downtown. Passengers in the rearmost cars were unaware of the danger, but the public address system was working. No one was reassured by the broadcasting of the motorman’s death gurgle. They were all at the demon’s mercy.
And oni have no mercy.
CHAPTER 52
Lieutenant Amos Foster knelt at the yellow line marking the lip of the Seventy-Nine Street Uptown platform. His lips were a thin, straight line. He watched a huge, shadowy figure prod the stalled Express train as a child might molest an unfamiliar caterpillar. His revolver was heavy in his hand. A handgun would not harm the thing even if he were in range, but the sound of a shot might distract the creature’s attention from the trainload of civilians.
Sergeant Dorothy Brunner trotted up behind him. She was a uniformed officer with eleven years’ experience. “The clerk in the token booth confirms all traffic on the Seventh Avenue Line has been halted in both directions, Lieutenant.”
Foster nodded, eyes still fixed on the oni. “Any chance of moving that train?”
“Negative. The conductor radioed the Control Center. The driver’s been killed, or so it sounded to him. He might’ve just had a heart attack.”
“Either way is murder.” Foster’s bad leg, the one he was kneeling on, throbbed. “Can the conductor move the train from his post?”
“Apparently not. He’s in a car with faulty wiring; only the emergency lights work. If he changes cars he’ll be exposed, and the movement would probably attract the creature. He wants to avoid that.”
“Can’t say I blame him. We’ll have to get another driver, slip him into the last car before the oni notices, and have him bring the train uptown. The important thing is to get enough distance from that monster to evacuate the passengers safely.”
Brunner frowned. “If that thing lets us.”
“We’ll keep him entertained. Afterwards, when we have a clear field, we’ll cut the electricity and surround that demon.”
Brunner glanced uneasily over her shoulder at the empty platform. “The back-up Rogan promised isn’t here yet.”
“It will be.” Foster spared the sergeant a glance. “You’re taking this pretty much in stride. Were you in on last night’s fiasco?”
“No, sir, but I talked to some who were.”
“Ever consider trying out for detective? I need a new partner.”
“I don’t know, Lieutenant. I’m not very good at tests, and I’m used to working alone on my beat.”
“Think about it. We’ll talk later.”
Sick guilt all but overwhelmed Francine Cooper. By pressuring an unready Andrew Kura, she’d doomed the middle-aged photographer along with a few hundred subway passengers … and those were only the immediate consequences. She should have waited. She shouldn’t have insisted they act now, tonight, immediately. A crash course in swordsmanship for the last of the Akuragawa line might have tipped the balance.
Cooper half wished that another train would rumble up the tracks on which she stood. She did not think that she would step aside.
As if acting on her suicidal impulse, Cooper walked slowly toward the oni. An eerie calm pervaded her being, driving off debilitating thoughts. Although she courted death with each step, she felt that she was actually affirming life. Her eyes locked on her goal: the red-skinned giant who now rocked the huge metal worm on its rails. His odious grin widened. Muffled shrieks of terror reverberated in the cavernous tunnel.
Cooper’s shoe touched hard metal where a rail had no place to be. She lowered her flashlight beam.
The iron sword shone ebony in the light.
Unthinking, Cooper picked up the weapon with her injured hand. The dull ache of her slashed palm subsided, receding in response to the cold metal. She closed her eyes. Her memory replayed a conversation so vividly she might have been reliving it. Kura’s whining voice renounced his obligation, thrust it on her. You can’t do that, she’d insisted.
But she didn’t know for sure that he could not.
The hilt fit perfectly in her bloodied hand. It seemed designed for her grip. She raised the weapon easily, an extension of her arm, while recalling how cumbrous it felt when Allison Zebar handed it to her less than two hours ago.
Less than a lifetime ago.
An unearthly current eddied about Cooper, tugging at the fringes of her thick cloth coat and loose, flowing hair. She sensed, rather than felt, that wind’s inherent warmth.
